Chances of a successful appeal?

[mialillyx]

We applied to a primary school 14 miles away for DD as we are hoping to move to the area to be nearer friends and family and the school we put down was the school all her friends applied for as well as they are all in the same nursery. Her older cousins are in the school atm too. Our house sale has fallen through 3 times in the last year and we have been crushed each time as it means we wont be moving any time soon, but ever hopeful!DD was not offered a place at this preferred school as the AN was 37 and DD was 39 on the list as she lives furthest away. DD is now on the waiting list as we still hope to move. What are the chances of a successful appeal? If the AN is 37 does that mean that any appeal wont be an Infant Size Class based appeal as its higher than the 30 child limit. Just looking for some positivity in any of this as DD is going to be so upset come September having to start a new school without any of her friends and cousins.

What is the year group set up of the school? 37 is an interesting PAN. Do they have a year R/1 mixed class as well as a full class each year?

Are you in England?

What are your grounds for appeal?

On the face of it, a PAN of 37 wouldn't be an ICS appeal. There is a concept of 'future prejudice' which means that if the set up of the school is that in future years ICS would apply (e.g. a PAN of 45, where there is a year R/1 mixed class), they must still treat it as an ICS appeal.

Distance isn't an issue when it comes to appeal. However, wanting to be with friends/relatives is not good grounds for appeal. Potentially moving at some point to the area is definitely not a good ground for appeal.

What grounds do you have for an appeal? I don’t understand the PAN either.

No we're in Wales

I thought that too about the PAN being 37, seems like a random number to me! The other schools on the list are all mainly 30, 45 or 60.

Yes they have mixed R/1 class as well as a full class each year

Childcare arrangements as I was hoping to share pick ups/drop offs with my SIL, we had planned to share them out between us around work commitments.

The fact that DD is in the nursery there already and is with all her friends (I know on the admissions info they state being in the nursery doesn't matter but it seems unfair if they are settled and happy there :( )

Guessing these aren't much grounds for appeal but it its not based on ICS I'm still somewhat hopeful.

No, I dont believe they are unfortunately.
Hopefully a space will open up for her soon

Those grounds are very unlikely to win regardless of whether it's ICS. You need to look at what the school has to offer your DD, not what's convenient for childcare. Friendships aren't likely to be seen as relevant.

Thanks for your replies everyone. I thought this would be the case. Hopefully she moves up the WL and gets in that way.

No chance. They don't care about the actual practicalities of it :(

It isn't that they don't care. It is that it isn't the responsibility of the Local Authority to ensure that children can get to school, unless the parent has put their nearest school on the CAF and the child is allocated a school that is more than 2 miles away despite that.

If every parent could choose their school based on childcare arrangements, drop off logistics, etc., it would be chaos.

It in indeed a strange pan number. It will be set as that for a reason though, likely safely in terms of space. Smaller schools with smaller classrooms have smaller pans generally as they simply can't fit 30 children in each classroom. It sounds to me as if they do classes of 24 or 25, with 12 going into the mixed class. Even if they could squeeze in an extra one though, someone else on the waiting list currently lives closer than your daughter so it wouldn't go to her.

You have zero grounds for appeal I'm afraid. They can't allocate places on who hopes to have moved into the area by September. You missed out to people who currently live closer than you do. That's just tough I'm afraid. I'm sorry if that sounds unsympathetic but so much time and energy is wasted every years on people lodging appeals they are never going to win. Life is full of disappointments but there is absolutely no point even starting an appeal unless you can prove the criteria wasn't applied fairly, which isn't the case here as you live 14 miles away. She was never going to get a place at an oversubscribed school that far away from your current home address.

I'm aware of someone who won an appeal for a similar PAN because they will have already factored in an extra teacher so they can't cite ICS- 3 children won appeals over the PAN. I suppose the only restriction might be if they have said 37 to exactly match the year 1 numbers- can you check if it was same PAM last year?

Also you may need proof of new address.